My Ma's 1986 Crown Victoria LX

[Tiggie]

Don't do the floor shifter. They look chintzy.

Mustang Eddie was parking out an 89. Probably has one if he still has the car. http://www.grandmarq.net/vb/showthre...ht=#post850445

I have half of one. I cut it when I pulled an engine/trans in the junkyard. I don't think half will do you any good.

[packman]

If you cut the rod (the one hanging off the side of the AOD in the pic) in half; then I guess not. I chose not to cut the rod and instead, cut the bushing holding the rod to the linkage body. I just can't figure out why I failed to remove the rod from the transmission.

[packman]

I called an audible and got the braided dipstick instead of the hard tube dipstick. I worked from home yesterday as I was scheduled to take the J&J vaccine on Wednesday morning. Since I had a few hours in the morning before that appointment, I slid underneath the Crown Vic and installed the braided dipstick. I had to play around with it quite a bit; threading it in and back out until I got the angle correct and wasn't in danger of cross-threading. I had to remove the bracket that was attached to the dipstick as it was too high to attach to one of the header bolts. I had to unthread the hose end to remove the bracket; and when I did that, I noticed tiny aluminum specs from unthreading. Since my Harbor Freight compressor is down; I had to use what little was left in my air tank to blow anything out of the braided hose. Then I reattached the dipstick to the oil pan and washed it out with WD-40. I hope I removed that material.

After the vaccination, I was still feeling spry despite the sore shoulder. So I went back out and got a good look at the dipstick; and figured out that I will get a 3/8 x 4"L stud for one of the primary# 3 bolts to use with a tube clamp in order to hold the dipstick in place. Also, I will replace most of the header bolts with grade 8 allen head bolts. They are easier to install and tighten down; especially the no. 4 cylinder in the rear of the driver side. I also had some heat shielding leftover from the fuel line install and slipped that over the dipstick hose in an attempt to keep the header heat away. We'll see how that works.

[packman]

Did a few small things to the CV today. I had meant to crawl under and hammer the floor pan, but just didn't feel like doing that. So I worked up top with some odd and end stuff. Installed the Painless 70A fuse for the fan and ran power to where the battery+ terminal will be. I finally got sick of looking at my battery tray/tool tray/trash tray and cleaned it up.

After that I moved over to the upper radiator hose and wrapped it with heat shielding in the area that contacts the fuel hose; also wrapped the fuel hose as well. That should keep the heat away.........hopefully.

Since I work slowly, the sun had set at that point. As I was packing up, I found my eyes looking at the old charge cables and signal wire (yellow/white stripe wire). So I stopped and grabbed the box cutter and cut a ton of electric tape off of the wiring harness in order to separate those wires. It was getting dark as I wire loomed the remaining wires. Just got in 45 minutes ago. Sometime this week I will get a look and see what kind of progress/damage I made.

Pics

[packman]

I'm going to be replacing the hex-head header bolts with these allen bolts. Like any other header bolt, I will be retightening them for a bit; but they are much easier to deal with than trying to get wrenches in between the primaries.

I also got 1.5" long versions of these for the header collector flanges, X-pipe flanges, and the cutout flanges.

I also also got M8 x 1.00 bolts for the fan pulley; I'm hoping that will work.

[packman]

So that was a fail. The allen bolts that I got for the headers was the wrong thread size. The allen bolts I got for the exhaust flanges and header collectors fit into the heads though. When I double checked the header bolts that came with the headers; against a 3/8-16 nut; they threaded in, but there was a little slop or wiggle. So now I am wondering if the TFS Twisted Wedge heads are metric threads instead of the standard 3/8"-16 thread size that I am used to dealing with.

So as not to have totally wasted the little good weather I had yesterday; I unraveled the wire loom and duct tape I had covering the 175A inline fuse for the alternator charge cable; and replaced it with heavy-duty heat shrink. I also cleaned up the terminal end of the charge cable and heat-shrinked that too.

Pics

[packman]

Found the CV battery under the welder in the portion of the garage that's still standing. My Dad had been keeping the various batteries charged in case we ever needed them. So I took the CV battery and mounted it in the CV battery tray. I then measured and assembled the battery cables. From right to left in the below pic; battery + to starter relay; battery + to power distribution strip; and battery - to the engine. I also ran the ground for the e-fan; but cut the wrong length. So I spliced that into the e-fan power cable and ran that to the power distribution strip on the fender. I wanted to get some more work done yesterday, but my sinuses killed all of that. I will begin checking everything over and start prepping for the 1st start.

[packman]

Bought a small Rigid brand compressor from Home Depot on my way back home from work on Friday. Think it was previously enjoyed as there was 100psi of tank pressure. I used that to blow out my trans cooler lines as that was what I would have done had the Harbor Freight compressor not died. Semi-permanently installed those lines and put 4qts of type-F into the AOD. Went ahead and sprayed the cylinders with WD-40 for the last time (I hope). I put up the muffler hangers (just a couple aviation clamps looped into a standard pipe hanger). Went to put coolant into the radiator and almost a gallon into it; I hear liquid hitting the cardboard underneath. Walked around to see coolant coming out of the threaded freeze plug hole on the passenger side of the block. I have a thread on this in the Box Tech section. At that point, I packed everything up and called it a day. Currently painting the trans linkage rod. Hope to have that ready to install by next weekend.

[packman]

I had planned on getting some work done to the CV, but a busy week at work and getting stuck in 2 hours of traffic made that impossible. Only managed to install 1 a/c and put bushings on the trans shift linkage. Had to put the bushings in boiling water in order to soften them up for the install. Looks pretty good for something that will be hidden underneath the chassis. Hope to do more tomorrow.

[packman]

Got off to a slow start today. I guess all of the shenanigans yesterday wore me out as I had very little figurative gas in the tank. As such, I installed my Aunt's a/c this morning. Then gathered my work laundry and brought it down to the laundromat; been over a year since I've been able to do that. Whilst waiting for the laundry to dry; I went home and removed the driver's side header in order to get to the threaded freeze plug. Those allen bolts made the header removal easy. Tapped the freeze plug hole and threaded in the NAPA plug. Went to fill up the coolant and heard nothing dripping or pouring. I could hear the radiator tank filling up when I realized that I hadn't installed the coolant reservoir. Dug the old JEGS coolant tank out of the basement and cleaned it up a little. Went to install it and realized that it won't fit where I had it because the relocated pcv catch can is in the way. I saw a spot to hang it in front of the trans cooler, but I didn't have enough 3/8" hose to run; so I got what I had left of my 6AN line and ran that to the radiator; only to find that the radiator port is too big. Removed the coolant overflow reservoir and went into the basement to find anything that I can make work. Found a short length of 8AN and a reducer fitting. It was dark by the time I assembled everything; so I packed it up and covered the CV. I will see how it all fits tomorrow. Gonna eat dinner and maybe install the living room a/c.

[packman]

Finished installing the rest of the a/c units in the house yesterday; and had enough energy afterwards to mess with the CV a little. I put up the coolant reservoir and finished filling the cooling system. It took over 3 gallons of coolant; probably more when the CV is running. It looks wonky, but it will have to do for now.

I had a light lunch and continued working on the CV. Put up the shift linkage since the header is down. Had to get the long pliers to force the rod into shift lever on the AOD. I may find the time this week to drain off the remaining WD-40 and start filling the engine with regular oil (and some Zinc additive). Still have to find a place on the engine for the battery ground; but that is pretty much it.

Pics

[packman]

I got a little time yesterday to mess with the CV. Discovered that my headers won't work with the shift linkage. The old BBK headers work, but that would require messing with the rest of the exhaust to make them work. If I knew how to weld, I would cut the linkage and reshape the rod to go under the header collector. As it were, I am not going to waste my time doing either one of those and just get a floor shifter. Find bucket seats and get a motorized slider for the driver side. Probably an equal amount of work, but at least something I can do myself without killing another summer.

[packman]

Forgot to mention that a couple weeks ago I found another threaded hole to use for the battery ground. So I tapped the 3/8-16 hole and used one of the header allen bolts I got. Installed the fan ground, starter solenoid ground, and the battery ground to the block. I tried to get a picture of it all; you can just make out where it bolts into the block under the MSD coil. Hopefully next weekend I can get some time with the CV.

[packman]

Wow, been over a month since I posted about this. I have made 3 attempts for the 1st start. The first attempt didn't happen because I got delayed by weather and I needed to fix my battery cable. I will make a new one whenever I have a successful 1st start. The second attempt was two weeks ago; discovered I had no power in the car after hooking up the battery. As SLY and Gadget73 pointed out; my starter solenoid was wired backwards. Solved that issue last Wednesday night and saw lights in the car (yay!). Felt confident as I went into last weekend and made the 3rd attempt Saturday afternoon. But my laptop wouldn't load the FTDI driver so I could talk to the Moates Quarterhorse. I discovered that my network adapter failed again. I had dedicated that laptop to live in the CV when it failed the first time (after using it for a Zoom and Microsoft Teams meeting). So I tried getting into the setting menu to troubleshoot; but it wouldn't open up the menu. Restarted it and still no go with the setting menu. At this point I was getting fairly hot with that laptop; so I smashed it on a rock nearby, separated its casing, and yanked the lithium battery and hardrive. Then threw it in the back of the garage where the roof caved in. It will remain until we demo that garage. Picking up a new laptop this evening. I am beginning to see why people send their cars off to builders; and why people who build cars charge the $$$$$ that they do. So freakin frustrating at times!

[Tiggie]

I know where you are coming from. People who get paid to do high end custom work really earn their money. It's hopefully something they enjoy.